We had a huge response to our "Space Pirate" Character Design Contest, thank you all very much! I saw a number of new folks entering for the first time as well, and I wanted to be sure to extend a warm welcome to them. I hope we see you around here for a long time to come!
By way of introduction, I have downloaded all of the submissions and looked through them each. Because there are so many (101!), I can't possibly show them all. Instead I go through and single out those entries that have something really special or unique about them, and show those in a gallery. Those are our Finalists, and I pick the overall winner from that group. Sometimes it's for the overall impact of the illustration, but sometimes it's just for one element that I liked a lot.
If your entry isn't one of the Finalists, that doesn't mean it wasn't good (even VERY good), or that I didn't like it, or that you're a bad person. I just have to limit them to a manageable number and, like on American Idol where sometimes great performers get cut, some fine illustrations will get left by the wayside. That's why I encourage everyone to go through the original submissions one by one, because you might just find your favorite there that I overlooked.
With that said, here are your Finalists (click on any one to start the slideshow -- the name of the artist and the image name is at the bottom):
